Land o' Links — 1/28/11

Clement and I worked together a while back, creating the HUMAN DEFENSE CORPS comic book for DC. As a writer, I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful and faithful version of my scripts. As each page came in, I was elated at the work, and a little jealous that Clement was so much better at drawing than I was.

I would like you to imagine a scenario: It is several decades in the future, and you are a cartoonist. You’d like to start selling your work on the open market. Unfortunately, several decades in the future the only viable field for doing business is on the Internet, where technical restrictions guarantee you will be locked out from entering the field without the assistance of a publisher.

That’s Dirk Deppey from 2001. That snail! That snail is coming right for us!

§ Brigid points us towards Paul Gravett’s new Creator Profiles page, and yeah, it could have some more women, but it’s still invaluable. Concise bios along with cogent commentary for important cartoonists? I’ll take it.

Aragones said he still enjoys the process of creating cartoons, and at age 73, has no plans to retire.

“Every day, I think jokes and ideas. And that’s part of my life, the sitting there to create, to try to make people laugh,” Aragones said. “And then the other part is sitting and drawing it, which is very comfortable … and time just flies. You’re doing something you like, and time flies.”

.O’Neil also remembered the effect of Superman’s words on him when he was a kid. “The Superman radio show, I know, gave me my first peek into race situations because I remember, I was a avid listener of that show, if you can imagine little Denny O’Neil standing listening to mommy’s radio, every afternoon at 5: 15,” he said with a laugh. “And Superman once said that the difference in skin color was only due to a chemical. And that was the first time I ever heard anything like that. It is now 66 years later or so, and I still remember it.”

§ Apparently, director Peter Jackson bought some statues at a hobby store, and the owner of that store then ran up Jackson’s credit card for $189,000.He said he was hoping to pay it back. But instead…he’s in jail! WHAT A JERK.

§ Follow-up: Somehow we missed George Gene Gustines’ story on the the FF Death, which for once evinces a wisdom about how these things work:

Comic book fans reacted to the news of the death of the Human Torch in predictable, and entirely valid, ways. Some of them bemoaned that the death was spoiled by news outlets before they could read the comic. Others deplored what they saw as a gimmick of ending the series with issue no. 588. The title will undoubtedly be restarted, in a different incarnation, with a new no. 1 issue (like catnip to collectors), but down the road there will likely be a return to the historical numbering for the title, a pattern which several Marvel comics, and some from DC, have followed after Shocking! New! Directions! Time will tell. We’ll miss you, Johnny.

§ Along those lines, two writers remind us of the plethora of past Fantastic Four deaths: Douglas Wolk:

2006: The Invisible Woman dies in the one-shot Fantastic Four: A Death in the Family. The Human Torch goes back in time and creates an alternate branch of history in which she doesn’t die. Problem solved.

As a former collector, I know there’s more value in modern series that are still active, the longer-running the better. That value shrivels and dies once that series is canceled.

I also see so many new No. 1 issues come out every year that they have no luster to me as a reader, and have no value to me as a collectible. They’ll probably be canceled and restarted again in a couple years anyway. They have a fly-by-night feel that counteracts the attraction of being in on something new.

Canceling and restarting is what slowly ended my collecting. As a completist, I kept buying series through thick and thin, even after I stopped liking them. Cancellations allowed me to effortlessly break that habit; they broke it for me.

With restarts, I can’t even trick myself with the rationalization that the new series might be worth something someday. The new comics have to stand on their own merit to warrant a purchase, and it’s pretty rare that any do. Most feel more like products of 9-5 office workers and marketing managers than creative teams, and that saps away the participation mystique and allure that attracted me to comics in the first place.

These days, the only way to keep liking my favorite characters is to stop reading the comics they’re in.

John says: “Most (comics) feel more like products of 9-5 office workers and marketing managers than creative teams, and that saps away the participation mystique and allure that attracted me to comics in the first place.”

Well, that’s what they are, basically. Marvel and DC basically have these pow-wows, where they decide the direction of the books for the next year, and how all of them will tie in for that summer’s Big Event.

“Let’s have so and so die.” “Let’s take these characters in a different direction.” “Let’s have this character join the Avengers.”

I don’t know how much the writers can actually do, knowing that the next Big Event is going to interrupt everything they’ve planned.

“These days, the only way to keep liking my favorite characters is to stop reading the comics they’re in.”

Yeah, it’s more fun to watch Batman: The Animated Series than it is to read a Batman comic.

My current favorite comic with loads of social commentary is CYCLOPS by Matz and Luc Jacamon (yeah the guys who did The Killer) from Archaia. Seriously if you want to look at the world in 50 years that comic is it. Awesome book.